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November 30, 2012

Cultured Cranberry Relish and Veggie Dippers

Fermenting veggies for serving with a dip, and cranberry relish - for Thanksgiving Day

I posted earlier about wanting to ferment my typical raw cranberry relish I make for Thanksgiving. And I said I wanted to ferment the veggies for a platter with a dip. I put off fermenting them cuz I was afraid of them getting too fermented. Like would the veggies be soggy limp? So I fermented them for about 24hours. They were a hit!

WELL . . . I had two jars of each. So a week later I jarred them up to put in my cool cellar. The veggies were still delish with a crunch and the cranberry was great too.

I just bought more organic cranberries that were on sale and going to make up some more. I'll probably keep doing this till the cranberry season is done. Is that just after Christmas?

I bought organic broccoli, orange cauliflower, celery, cucumber and carrots. I sliced them and put them in a large bowl, along with some slivered fresh garlic. I sprinkled on about 4 Tb sea salt and occasionally stirred to start the veggies juicing. I must have wrote this down somewhere! cuz I'm pretty sure I added some peppercorns and possibly some cloves. And then some liquid whey. Just make sure the veggies are covered with water, which with the salt becomes a brine. There's a glass weight in the jars to keep the veggies submerged.

Pulse all but the whey in a food processor. Don't puree. This mixture filled my 1 1/2 Liter and a 1 Liter Pickle-It containers, with a glass weight, and airlock on top of jar. I squeezed some lemon juice on top of both for extra submerging liquid. You can do this in a regular fido jar or canning jar with a plastic lid. But I have tasted a difference in the foods fermented with the airlocks - better tasting!